HOW TO HOW TO HOW TO
Gretchen Andrew

Exhibition 19 Nov – 19 Dec | Thurs – Sat 12 – 6pm | PV 18 Nov 6-9pm
Join artist Gretchen Andrew in an investigation into the notion of ‘becoming’. Learn how to ‘how to eat like a Russian astronaut’ in an intimate dinner event, ‘become a novelist’ in a You Tube inspired book launch, and explore the limits of attaining perfection, in an ongoing exhibition this Winter in Hackney Wick’s arebyte Gallery.

Andrew is a California born, London artist who works in online and offline mediums. She started painting in San Francisco after becoming convinced that the internet can teach you anything. Taking a knowingly disjointed approach, both her exhibition and accompanying events explore the internet as a resource of ingredients from which we each cook up a formulaic, yet individualistic recipe for perfection, whatever that may be. Each body part is perfected in isolation, with the absurd suggestion that once assembled, a perfect person is complete.

Using YouTube guided films as her starting point, Andrew’s project investigates what you can and cannot learn online. What can we become, through time, persistence and YouTube “How to” searches including: how to die, how to speak Japanese, how to be sexy, how to do a split, and how to forget?, YouTube-learned actions are recorded and made into playful GIFs; with their repetitive loops, these GIFs are used as the artist’s primary medium to suggest and question the notion of “practice makes perfect.”




EVENT: Private view HOW TO HOW TO HOW TO
WHEN: Friday 18th November/ 6-9pm
Opening Days: 18th November - 18th December/ Thursday- Saturday 12-6pm
WHERE: 49 White Post Lane Queens Yard Hackney Wick E9 5EN, 6-9PM
Have a drink, a chat with the artist and find out about the HOW TO series of upcoming Winter events including a book launch and dinner. What limits us? Our online searches become a catalogue of insecurities, as we question how to have better elbows? If YouTube is showing us how to write novel, does that make us novelists?

Andrew’s practice is asking these questions every day. The result is both performative and visual, digital and physical, but above all playful. HOW TO HOW TO HOW TO be perfect takes the existing investigation of internet DIY culture and focuses it on beauty standards. Andrew presents a set of actions repeated to a point of absurdity and asks, if repeated on loop do these actions results in perfection